Is there a compendium of English and Colonial gun control laws
out there? I know Bellesiles claimed to have been researching this, and
my sense is Prof. Churchill has looked at some, too, but I'm wondering
if there's some place out there where they're well organized. Thanks,
Joyce Malcolm has done the most work on the English side, but it is more
selective than comprehensive, although there apparently also wasn't much
legislation beyond what is in her book. On the U.S. side the closest are
the books by James Whisker, which we have online at
It should be noted that what we today call gun control laws were rare,
and almost all directed at disarming disfavored minorities, like
Catholics (in England), or Blacks or Native Americans (in the colonies
and early republic). About the first U.S. laws to restrict white males
were the
Jon Roland wrote:
Joyce Malcolm has done the most work on the English side, but it is more
selective than comprehensive, although there apparently also wasn't much
legislation beyond what is in her book. On the U.S. side the closest are
the books by James Whisker, which we have online at
